Re: [ga] GA representation on the Names Council

[Jonathan Weinberg <weinberg@mail.msen.com>]

At 09:49 AM 11/17/99 -0500, John C Klensin wrote:
>I've just realized (being a bit slow) that a lot of the
>frustration that has periodically filled the GA list with noise
>and name-calling is due to the perception that the NC was
>composed of people appointed by Board-authorized constituencies
>and that there was no possibility for people who were not part
>of those constituencies to have a voice.  It it equally clear
>that recognition of the (an) IDNO won't solve the problem --
>someone will always feel left out.

	Yes and no, I think.  It's true that one of the major problems with the
current DNSO structure is that the NC is composed of people selected by the
constituencies, and offers no representation to the many who are outside
the constituencies.  That fact makes it unsurprising that, say, Nii and
Karl Auerbach got extensive support from within the GA when it came to
ICANN BoD nominations, but little support from within the NC.  This is a
Bad Thing:  It's not justifiable, I think, to privilege in DNSO
decisionmaking the folks who happen to be members of the (themselves
arbitrary) NC constituencies.  The NC, further, shouldn't use the GA's
dysfunctionality as an excuse for ignoring the beam in its own eye.

	I'm not sure, though, that any of that is the *reason* the GA list is
functioning so poorly.  A lot of folks within the GA, surely, distrust the
NC because of these concerns; but the folks who are most responsible for
disrupting the GA list, I think, are primarily driven by ego and
testosterone and I don't know what else.  I doubt that suggestions like the
one below would quiet them -- which leaves us with the issue of how to
address the problems with the GA list.

Jon


Jonathan Weinberg
weinberg@msen.com


>
>I also realized that this has some similarity to the problem the
>IETF faced some years ago in trying to figure out how to select
>a (quite powerful) nominations committee in an organization that
>has no membership list.
>
>So, a proposal, independent of the chair selection process or
>anything else...
>
>(i) the NC be immediately expanded by three members.   If I
>correctly recall the bylaws, they can't be given the vote
>without ICANN Board action, but it should be possible for the NC
>to seat them as observers (with the same standing to participate
>in discussions) on its own initiative while the formalities are
>being pursued.
>
>(ii)  All three people selected to these positions will serve
>for one year.  If any resign or decline to serve, the
>replacement will be only for the duration of the original year.
>The intent it to get this mess straightened out during the year
>-- turning the GA into another constituency is not, IMO, a
>desirable long-term approach-- and replace it with  whatever
>permanent arrangements are needed/appropriate.
>
>(iii) Those eligible to serve will be the entire
>contents/membership of the -announce and -ga lists as of
>(ideally) last Friday.  Selection of a date in the recent past
>prevents "stacking" by a rash of subscriptions.   If capturing
>last Friday's list is not feasible, the list contents should be
>captured as of the time this note is received at the
>secretariat.  In the interests of fairness, the secretariat
>should add everyone who has been excluded from the list within
>the next month for antisocial behavior back into the pool.
>
>(iv) The _sole_ qualifications for these seats shall be 
>
>     (a) Membership in the GA, as defined above by list
>membership
>     
>     (b) Willingness to provide the secretariat and the NC a
>     potentially-authenticatable name (e.g., one that might
>     appear on a driver's license, passport, or national
>     identity card, rather than a network persona), postal
>     mailing address, telephone number, and other reasonable
>     information to establish that the emailing address belongs
>     to a person.
>
>(v)  Within that pool of qualified names, an ordering will be
>established by random selection (reference below to a procedure
>that is known to be tediously fair; let's not waste a lot of
>energy discussing this or other ways to get randomness).   The
>first three names chosen will be seated as Names Council
>members.   If one or more decline to serve, or subsequently
>resign, he or she will be replaced by the next person on the
>list.  Beyond those seated, the ordering of the names will not
>be revealed in order to prevent gaming the system or one person
>resigning in favor of another (to preserve randomness, people
>should be encouraged to serve by any means necessary, including
>fear that they might be replaced by someone they would consider
>unacceptable).
>
>Now, the weakness in (v) is that someone (or some very small
>number of people) have to be trusted to do the computations and
>then keep the list.  For convenience, I'd favor turning this
>over to ICANN staff  or the board, and letting Mike or Esther do
>it.  But some of those who are feeling least represented
>obviously don't trust them.  It probably should be someone who
>is not actively involved in the current DNSO fray -- perhaps we
>could try to pull Tamar Frankel out of semi-retirement on this
>subject (warning: I haven't consulted her about willingness to
>serve -- this proposal will come as more of a surprise to her
>than it does to you).   Or someone might have a better idea. But
>I'd personally be reasonably comfortable having the NC or Board
>make the choice, with the main requirement being integrity.
>
>Anyway, does that appeal to anyone?  Comments from NC readers of
>this list?  Other suggestions?
>
>If we can't trust elections, maybe we can trust Gauss.
>
>     john
>
>Reference: the current randomization procedure used in the IETF
>is described in
>
>http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-eastlake-selection-04.
>txt
>It has been nit-picked extensively by experts (on both
>randomization and nit-picking), for whatever that is worth.
>
>
>